(b)logophile

I got a giggle from a couple of judicious put-downs in this week’s TLS. A review of Max Hastings’ “family fable” Did you really shoot the television? picks out his headmaster’s observation that “his contemporaries do not like him, and they are not bad judges of character”. I actually suspect the other one is not [...]

Olga has written a post describing her experiences with the Greek education system and what she thinks mathematics education should be. My dream was to manage one day to become a teacher of mathematics in order to do what I saw no teacher doing. To explain to young students how to play mathematics. (One might [...]

Spring is almost upon us! For the past week, almost every time I’ve looked out the windows I’ve seen the sun!1 It’s not warm yet, but surely that cannot be far away? In celebration thereof, a youtube clip that made me smile (and, at 2:20, laugh). [via] Notes:Yes, I close my curtains at night, smarty. [...]

Idlewords has a fascinating essay on the history of scurvy: Scott’s Antarctic expedition in 1911 was plagued by the disease, despite its having been “conquered in 1747, when the Scottish physician James Lind proved in one of the first controlled medical experiments that citrus fruits were an effective cure for the disease.” How it all [...]

So yeah, the Greek economy is on the rocks. Which puts the rest of Europe under pressure. Which leads some German politicians to make helpful suggestions that one somehow expects will not be appreciated. One also has a sneaking suspicion that the gentlemen in question have probably never had a conversation with a real live [...]